Oyster

Martha Wilson is Canadian correspondent for the Japan Times (Tokyo) and
a Toronto-based freelance editor and writer.

Set in the blood-red opal-mining country of Australia’s outback, this
novel weaves together the stories of a number of trapped and shattered
characters.

No one who comes to Outer Maroo leaves again. As far as the rest of the
world is concerned, it is a place that doesn’t exist. When telephone
linemen venture in to repair the broken lines, their trucks have a funny
habit of spontaneously combusting. Religion, like a ring of fire around
Outer Maroo, limits access to the outside world. There are other
restraints: petrol is sold only by the half-tank, which will barely get
you out into the desert; and Ma Beresford at the general store/post
office places outgoing letters in official Australia Post bags and locks
them in her back room.

When the new schoolteacher, Miss Rover, tries to discover why no one
can leave this place, she stirs up the darkness in a way that prompts
16-year-old Mercy Given into explorations of her own. The tragedy that
unfolds centres on Oyster, a messianic figure who has created a cult in
an opal mine, and on the townspeople, who have their own agendas.

The author’s prose is compelling in its ominous rhythms. “There
were tiny steps that she, that others, might have taken months ago, a
year ago ... and if they had taken them, how different things might be
now. But how can one know in advance which landslide will be started or
averted by the moving of a pebble with the toe?” This book is
unforgettable.